


Back to Bourbon Street

by wkemeup



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, F/M, Poison, brink of death cuddling, canon level violence, hurt!reader
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-03
Updated: 2020-10-03
Packaged: 2021-03-07 19:07:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,966
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26792605
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wkemeup/pseuds/wkemeup
Summary: When you’re badly injured on a mission, Bucky works desperately to keep you alive. Only, it might not be enough.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Reader
Comments: 10
Kudos: 157





	Back to Bourbon Street

There is a moment of clarity amidst the chaos of the battlefield; a brief, impossible moment that allows Bucky to take hold of a peace he’s been missing for decades. The perfect storm of violence and adrenaline is one he’s familiar with, something he knows well enough to allow his mind to take a step back and give control to his instincts. 

Left jab. Right hook. Kick. Swipe the leg. Shoot.

The sound of the chopper above is muffled. The shouts of the men rushing at him with weapons and malice are indistinguishable. His body moves of its own accord and _this_ is what makes him untouchable. Even with the Winter Soldier buried to the deepest parts of his mind, Bucky finds a relief in letting go of the control, of allowing an untethered detachment to rise to the surface just long enough to get the job done. 

Bodies in his wake, blood on his hands, and his mind elsewhere.

That is, until you come into view. 

Elegant in your movements, exceptional in your ability, you’re teasing Sam on the coms as you duck under the swing of a mercenary and clip him on the chin on your way up. You’re laughing, bright enough that it carries the several feet away to where Bucky is in hand to hand with a combatant half his size. 

He pauses, taken back by how clear your laugh comes through when the rest of the world seems muffled and distant. It’s not enough to give the scrawny opponent an advantage, because even as Bucky watches you with an awe and disbelief, his left arm snakes around the man’s throat and hurtles him fifty feet away with little effort. 

Amongst enemy lines filled with bad guys and guns, amongst the blinding snowfall and the blistering wind, amongst blood staining crystalized white upon the frozen dirt, you capture the entirety of his focus. Clear as day. Spotlight down from the sky. A wonder to behold. 

You catch his eye and for a moment his heart skips completely because you smile at him. A light breaking through a sea of shadows, wrinkling up by your eyes, a giggle in your chest, and Bucky’s knees nearly give out from under him. 

You must notice the fluster burning hot on his cheeks and you start to laugh; that same beautifully, sweet sound that shouldn’t belong on a battlefield. He smiles back.

But the moment lasts longer than it should. It’s something too kind for the evil you’re surrounded with and it’s taken away in a matter of seconds when Bucky sees the sharp reflection of a blade flicker under the haze of sunlight. 

His stomach drops as if he’s stepped off the edge of the cliff, as if he’s falling hundreds of feet into a dark ravine to the icy waters below, and he barely feels the sharp burn of a bullet as it skims his right shoulder. 

“Y/n!” he screams, wasting no time in firing fatal shots to the men around him before he rushes towards you. 

But he’s trudging through mud and quicksand and his limbs are fighting through the resistance of ocean currents. He’s trapped in a nightmare, he’s certain of it, because his body is failing him in the one place it’s not supposed to. Time slows down as he watches the flash of panic in your eyes.

He’s still a few feet away when the knife embeds itself in your stomach.

Something else takes over; maybe it’s the Winter Soldier, maybe it’s something darker that has always resided inside of him, lying in wait, but his vision fills with red as he watches you clutch at the shoulders of your assailant, lips parted in shock, chest heaving as you glance down at the knife buried in your gut. A sickening smile curves up on the man’s face and he drops you to the ground. 

Bucky only vaguely registers the bodies that fall around him as he empties his clip. He can’t look at you now, not as blood starts to seep around your suit and drip into the snow, so he focuses the brunt of his tunnel vision to the man wielding the knife. The satisfied grin drops as he notices Bucky raise his weapon. It only takes one shot, but Bucky fires six. 

By the time he reaches you, he’s skidding on his knees into the snow. It soaks into his suit and sends shivers into his spine in unpleasant memories of the ice, but he pays it little mind as he bends down to assess the damage. His hands hover over the blade, almost afraid to touch you, and he resides to keep the knife secure until he can safely remove it. 

“Hey, Barnes,” you mutter weakly and it snaps Bucky from his trance. He looks up to see you smiling at him, though your eyes are fluttering shut. Your breathing is shallow. 

“Don’t talk right now,” Bucky warns you because he can see the energy draining away. It’s happening too quick. The blade doesn’t appear as though it’s nicked any major arteries, and yet, you look as though it plunged straight through your heart.

You chuckle, though it’s faint and you wince in the effort. “Sick of my voice already?”

Bucky shakes his head, astounded how you can still tease him in your position. “You kidding me? Not a chance.”

He reaches up to press a finger to the coms to get ahold of someone, _anyone,_ to get you airlifted out of here, only to find it slipped out of his ear in the struggle. A quick glance back behind him and he knows he’ll never find it amongst the snow. He clenches his jaw and tried not to let the panic show as he looks for yours. 

“Lost mine, too,” you mumble, gesturing to the broken pieces in the snow beside you. One of your attackers must have hit you hard enough to dislodge it and slammed it under his heel to cause that much damage. 

Bucky pulls in a deep breath, glancing up to the sky in search of Sam, only to find a dark cast of clouds carrying over. On the ground, dozens of mercenaries are engaged with the rest of the Shield team and more are piling out from the woodwork. 

“I have to get you out of here,” Bucky resides. He doesn’t have a plan, but he knows it’s not safe where you are. He slips a hand under your knees, another around your back, and hoists you into his arms. He’s lucky the blade is small enough that it stays nestled in place as he carries you away from the field. 

He tries not to think of what would happen if a mercenary caught up with him now. He was defenseless with you in his arms and there wasn’t a chance in hell he’d sacrifice you to save himself. 

The wind whips around the trees, snow stinging on his cheeks as it builds in the scruff on his cheeks. You curl into his neck as best you can and he knows it’s subconscious, that it doesn’t mean much more than you seeking out the warmth of his body, but it doesn’t stop the trace of a smile that pushes at his cheeks. 

“Stay with me, alright?” he pleads, though he’s not sure you can hear him. It earns a tired hum in response. 

A storm is approaching quickly judging by the dark overcast of clouds and the snow on his boots that inches up higher along his shins with every step. If the blade doesn’t kill you, the exposure will, and Bucky starts to pick up his pace. 

The field is nothing but a distant haze by the time he reaches an unmarked dirt road. He must have walked miles with you in his arms, fading in and out of consciousness, waking you up every few paces when your eyes started to flutter closed. The relief is overwhelming when he spots a cabin at the end of the road, obstructed by trees and overgrown weeds. Abandoned. 

“Almost there,” he tells you and you curl up tighter against him. A whine leaves your lips and he picks up the pace. 

Bucky doesn’t bother with picking the lock and slams his foot to the most vulnerable angle of the door instead. It whips open to reveal an empty living room; dark, with cobwebs hanging in the corners and dust upon the mantle. He rushes inside to escape the painful sting of the wind and the snowfall as it piles outside the door. His footprints are already swept away in the impending storm. 

“You’re alright, hold on,” Bucky mumbles, blindly searching around the room until he can lower you onto the couch. He wipes away as much of the dust as he can as he eases you against the cushions. Your face scrunches up in pain and he knows how hard you’re trying to hide it from him. 

He brushes a hand over your forehead and it startles him when he finds it burning hot. He doesn’t have a lot of time. 

“I’ll be right back.”

_“No! Wait–”_

He freezes, stunned when he hears your voice so clearly. Your hand wraps at his wrist, clenching so tight it would have hurt if it wasn’t constructed of solid metal. When he meets your eye, he finds a pain stab straight through his chest, because he’s become so used to your light and joy and charm that the fear etched into your features ruins him completely. 

“Bucky, don’t go.”

His heart splinters. 

“I need to find a first aid kit. I’ve got to clean that wound before it gets infected,” he explains as gently as he can, sinking down to his knees beside you. You nod at his words, but you’re unconvinced.

“I won’t leave you,” he adds with a little more conviction.

His relationship to you is complicated; filled with teasing smiles and playful tension in the sparring ring, late night talks and comfortable silence. You were the first person he trusted in Shield outside of Steve and Sam, the first to make him laugh until his stomach hurt, the first to accept him completely and entirely as the man he is, not who he was in his youth or what Hydra made him to be. You didn’t ask questions, didn’t expect him to be anything he wasn’t. 

He cares for you and he knows, at least on some level, you must care for him, too. He can’t imagine that anyone would be as sweet as you are with him if you didn’t. There’s too much violence to overlook, too much evil ingrained into his veins. You don’t seem to mind and Bucky wonders most days if you’re not simply an angel sent from heaven itself with the extent of absolution you grant to him. 

So it’s not a question. There’s no second guessing. He won’t leave you. 

“I’ll be right back,” he presses again, eyes flickering to the knife in your side. “I promise.”

You nod, letting go of his wrist, but he can tell you’re still afraid. He recognizes it in himself, how he’s felt as though if he closed his eyes for even a second, he might convince himself it was all a dream and he’ll wake up right back in Hydra’s cell. He realizes then that you’re wondering if Bucky steps out of your view, he might disappear entirely and you’ll be alone, facing the impending darkness on your own. 

“Hey, remember that summer in New Orleans?” Bucky starts, hoping to ease your panic through the sound of his voice as he slips from the room. “Sam was walking around Bourbon Street with a dozen beaded necklaces and tripping over his own feet?” 

Bucky can vaguely hear you chuckle weakly from the living room as he rummages through the drawers in the bathroom. 

He continues. “Don’t think I’ve ever seen Sam that wasted before. I had to carry him up three flights of stairs to his room.” 

Shifting through old toothpaste containers, wash rags, makeup brushes, Bucky knelt down under the sink in search of anything he can use. He grabs the clean towels and an ace bandage hidden behind the pipes and moves onto the first bedroom. He still needs something to close the wound. 

“Idiot passed out on me before midnight,” Bucky calls out to the living room, stealing a glance at you to make sure your eyes were still open. You smile at him, faded and faint, but he continues on. “You called when we didn’t show up to the bar, remember? You didn’t think you could keep up with Natalia’s tolerance and you wanted to push some of your drinks off on me.”

Bucky is surprised when his lips curve up into a smile at the memory. It was the first time anyone managed to convince him to stay a few days passed the scheduled mission. He always had such a hard time saying no to you. 

“Think that might have been the first night I went out dancing since the forties. It was a little different than what I was used to but the music had the same soul to it,” Bucky continues as he searches under the bed, through the closet, shoving aside old clothes and shoe boxes. He can feel the panic rising, though he keeps his voice as calm as he can manage. His hands are trembling until he finds a small white box tucked into the back corner. Red cross on the top. 

It’s missing a few pieces inside but it’s enough. Relief surges through him and Bucky makes his way back out to the living room. 

“Don’t know if I would have let anyone else drag me away from the bar long enough to get a whole song out of me,” Bucky says as he holds up the kit for you to see and quickly moves to the kitchen to wash his hands. 

“You’re a good dancer, Barnes,” you mutter out feebly, smiling fondly at the memory. 

It’s a good memory, he thinks. A little faded with time, but he can still recall how you felt pressed against his chest, how his left nestled along the small of your back, his right intertwined with yours. Slow movements, swaying gently to the soft strum of the guitar. 

Bucky smiles backs at you, pauses for just a moment to memorize the way your lips curve up so beautifully into your cheeks before he turns to the sink to wash his hands. The water comes out brown for the first few seconds before it clears up. He washes his hands quickly and gathers a bucket of water before he makes his way back to you. 

As he kneels down at your side, he tries to mask the flash of panic that courses through him as he catches sight of the blood seeped into the couch under your back and the sweat dripping down your temples. It’s wet in your hair and you don’t seem to be in much pain anymore. Just tired. Your eyelids fall heavy.

“Hey,” Bucky calls sharply, shaking your shoulder a little harsher than he intended. Your eyes snap open. “You need to stay awake for me, alright? You know I’m lousy at this stuff. Need you to make sure I’m doing it right.”

You laugh, though Bucky can tell it’s forced. You both know he’s lying. He’d tended to wounds of his own far worse than this before. But Bucky doesn’t care about causing himself pain. He powers through it, uses it as a means of strength. He knows how badly this will hurt you and he hesitates as he holds a pair of scissors to your suit. 

“I trust you,” you say so quietly Bucky isn’t certain he even heard it. You nod at him. 

Bucky takes a deep breath as he cuts away at your suit and removes the fabric away from the wound. 

“It’s going to bleed a lot,” he warns. “Don’t let it scare you.”

You nod, staring up at the ceiling as you try to prepare yourself. 

Bucky doesn’t say anything else, because he knows it will make this harder. Your chest rises a little quicker, hands clench into fists, and it takes nearly everything Bucky has not to hold your hand instead of the hilt of the knife. 

It happens quickly. He pulls the knife from your stomach in one fluid motion. You gasp at the sudden sensation, a cry in your voice as you bite down on your fist to keep yourself from screaming, and Bucky presses a towel to your side to absorb the gush of blood and it drenches the cloth in a matter of seconds. 

He removes it in favor of a clean one and drops the bloodied rag onto the floor. The next towel doesn’t turn red as quickly and Buck begins to exhale a sigh of relief. The blood flow is slowing down. It’s a good sign. It’ll give him the chance to clean the wound and stitch you up enough to keep you together until rescue shows up. 

It takes a while before Bucky dares to lift the cloth. It’s heavy in his hands and dripping with blood, but the wound doesn’t appear to be freshly bleeding. Bucky gets to work, humming quietly to himself as he cleans the wound as best he can. He can feel your eyes on him, watching as he tends to the wound and mumbles under his breath, but he doesn’t mind. You’re awake. It’s all that matters to him. 

“You really need to do that?” you ask nervously as Bucky begins to thread a needle. 

Bucky shrugs. “There’s a stapler in the office if you prefer that?” 

You laugh, enough to cause a bit of blood to seep out from the cleaned wound and Bucky presses a hand to your stomach to stop the bleeding. 

“Hey! Don’t mess with my work!” he teases, thankful for a moment where you feel more like yourself than you had since he picked you from the snowbank on the battlefield. You nod, trying to contain your smile, though its weak and fading. 

“My apologies, Sergeant Barnes.”

“That’s Dr. Barnes to you,” Bucky quips back, distracting you long enough to slip the thread through your skin. You wince, hand gripping in tight to the straps on his shoulder.

“Yeah?” you mutter out tensely. “What decade did you get your medical degree in, _Doctor_? Feels pretty amateur from where I’m sitting.”

“You should be nicer to me, doll. I’m the one with the needle in my hand,” Bucky smirks. Only two more threads to go before the wound is closed and you’re taking it like a champ. Pride swells in his chest and he has the urge to kiss you, but quickly pushes the feeling down. 

“Imagine how I must feel,” you scoff playfully, exhaling a heavy breath of relief as Bucky sits back and cuts the thread. 

Bucky grins, brushing a clean cloth over the surface to wipe away the excess blood. “You did good. Try to get some rest now, alright? I’ll be here.”

He lifts a blanket up over your body and lets it lay against your chest. You smile at him again and he’s certain it’s the most beautiful sight he’s ever seen. He stands to clean up the mess around the couch when your hand catches his. 

“Thank you.” You squeeze his hand, rub your thumb over his wrist, something so tender and loving that it nearly jolts his heart straight from his chest. 

“Anytime, doll,” he replies as even as his voice will let him. By the time he finishes cleaning the bloodied rags and rinsing the red stains from his hands, you’ve already fallen asleep. 

Bucky takes his time as he gathers a few stray blankets and lays them down on the floor beside the couch. He knows there’s a room with a decent bed just a few feet down the hall but he meant what he promised you. He wasn’t going to leave your side. 

So, he lays down on the hardwoods, rests a pillow under his head, and stars up at the ceiling; content to listen to the soft sounds of your breathing until they too lull him to sleep. 

***

He wakes abruptly a few hours later. It’s dark outside, nearly pitch black in the cabin, and Bucky rubs his hands over his tired eyes before he realizes what woke him up. 

Quiet whimpers above him, muffled, pained. You’re crying. 

Bucky jolts up in a panic. He kneels beside you to find you curled up on your side, knees tucked to your stomach, tears streaming down your cheeks. You’re sweating again, and it drenches into your hair. 

“Y/n?” Bucky begs, hands hovering over you, terrified to make it worse. “Y/n, talk to me.”

“It hurts,” you cry, barely able to mutter the words out. “It hurts… _bad._ S-Somethings wrong.”

Bucky nods, rushing up to the fireplace to give some light. It takes him longer than it should and he nearly shouts out in frustration before it sparks and a flame bursts onto the wood. It’s a faint flicker, but it’s enough. 

“Let me see,” he requests, and you release the blanket to let Bucky’s slide it off of you. He helps guide you to lay flat on the couch and he knows how much it hurts you because you’ve bitten down so hard on your lip, it’s bleeding. You choke back a cry. 

“I know, sweetheart,” Bucky soothes, running a hand down your arm to find you shaking so badly it trembles right into his palm. You’re fully sobbing as he tries to pry your hands away from the wound. “I’m so sorry, but you have to let me see it, honey. Come on now. It’s alright.”

You pull your hands away, clutching them tight into the couch cushions and it’s then that Bucky sees the series of large, angry, purple veins extending from the wound. Jagged lines protruding out across your stomach, stretching up towards your chest to your heart. 

Bucky can’t find his breath as he stumbles back. On the ground at his feet, the faint flicker of the knife catches his eye in the dim light of the fire behind him, and he bends down to pick it up. On its surface, hardly visible, is a sticky thin substance; green in color, bitter in its stench. Poison. 

“I’m gonna die, aren’t I?”

Bucky’s eyes snap up to you as the knife slips from his hand. It clashes against the hardwoods and echoes through the painful silence in the cabin, only obstructed by the muffled whistle of the wind outside and your faint attempts to stifle the sob etching its way through your throat. 

“No,” Bucky replies quickly, though his voice wavers. You’re unconvinced as tears slip past your eyes and you drop his gaze in favor of the ceiling tiles. 

_“No,”_ he tries again, firmer as he kneels by your side. He runs a hand over your forehead to brush away the sweat, soothes his palm against your face and traces the line of your cheekbone until you dare to meet his eye again. “I’m not going to let that happen. I’m _not_ letting you die today; you hear me? You’re going to be just fine.”

“Bucky…”

“You’re going to be _fine,_ ” he says again, determined. “Starks probably got a whole branch of the military searching for you by now. We both know how much of a soft spot he’s got for you. Hell, I’m lucky you’re the one I’m MIA with. Stark wouldn’t waste an AI suit on tracking me down. But you? Come on. He won’t sleep until you’re home safe.”

Bucky doesn’t know why he’s trying to draw a smile out of you. He’s terrified and he knows you are too, but dammit, all he ever wants to do is make you smile. 

“Tony would send more than an AI for you.”

Bucky chuckles, shaking his head. “You underestimate how much he dislikes me.”

“It’s been better, hasn’t it?” you ask, and he knows you’re trying to distract yourself from the pain, so Bucky nods. 

“It has. He hasn’t tried to kill me lately, so I’d consider that an improvement.”

You smile and Bucky’s whole world brightens around him. Sunshine through the night sky, past the dark clouds and the blizzard outside the window, flowers blooming through the snow. It’s perfect. _You’re_ perfect. 

But then the pain sweeps in again and steals your smile away, warps it and twists it until you’re crying so hard you can barely breathe and Bucky is helpless but to watch. 

There’s nothing he can do. He doesn’t know what the poison is, let alone how to counteract it. He doesn’t often wish Stark was around, but he does in this moment. _He’d_ know what to do. _He_ could save you, take away this pain, in a way Bucky couldn’t.

He finds himself looking to the windows, watching as the snow continues to fall in blurring sweeps enough that he can’t see the trees beyond the clearing. He figures at least another foot of snow has piled up in the last hour but maybe if he could find the right layers in the back bedroom, he could make himself useful, venture out to find a nearby town or a phone or – 

“Don’t.” 

Your voice is barely a whisper but it punctures straight through to Bucky’s heart.

“Please don’t go,” you mutter out. “I don’t want to be alone when… when I…”

“Hey,” Bucky exhales, shaking his head, “hey, come on. What did I say? You’re not dying today, remember?”

He tears his eyes away from the window, forgets his plan because he knows you’re right. He can’t leave you. He wants to believe that his hope is enough, that his insistence will sway fate herself, but the truth is he doesn’t know. He can’t do much of anything at all, but he starts to wonder if there is something he _can_ do to shoulder even an ounce of your pain. 

Slowly, Bucky slips an arm under your back and gently guides you forward just enough so that he can slide into the space behind you. You mold against him as he eases his way onto the couch beside you, gathering you up into his arms. He runs a tender hand over your stomach along the spidery veins around the knife wound and you don’t wince. It seems to come and go in waves. 

The next wave comes quickly and Bucky holds you through it the best he can. He’s never felt so helpless in his life; arms wrapped tight around you, a hand soothing along your arm as he tries to reassure you that this will pass, that Stark’s on his way, that you’ll be okay, but he doesn’t know if he’s telling the truth anymore. 

You exhale as the pain subsides again and you’re drenched in sweat. Bucky is too, but he doesn’t mind, not if it means he can give you even an ounce of comfort through this. You curl against him, careful of the fresh stitches in your side. 

“I’m scared.” It comes out broken and aching and Bucky’s heart lurches. 

“I know, honey. But I’m here. I’m not going anywhere, alright? I’ve got you. You’re not alone.” 

It’s all he can say. 

His own helplessness makes him sick. 

There’s a prolonged silence and Bucky finds himself keeping a finger against your pulse, just to be sure. He feels like screaming or crying or maybe both, but he exhales a steady breath and tries to calm his heart rate instead because he knows you can hear it. 

“I’m glad it’s you,” you say after a while, voice barely louder than a whisper. It’s faint, fading, and Bucky bites down on his cheek. “I’m glad… that if this is… if this is _it_ … you’re here.”

It breaks his heart, shatters it to pieces. He’d trade places with you if he could, absorb your pain tenfold if it meant you’d survive this, but he knows it’s a fantasy. Bucky Barnes stopped allowing himself to indulge in such dreams a long time ago. 

So, he holds you a little tighter, dares to press a kiss to the crown of your head, and rubs gentle circles along your spine. He can feel your pulse weaken, how it slips to beats a little longer apart, how your breaths fall shallow and he’s not ready to lose you yet. He’s _not._

“How about when we get out of here, we go dancing?”

You don’t say anything, but he can feel your smile against his chest, the warm of your breath as you exhale a tired chuckle. It takes nearly all of your energy. 

“Been thinking about it a lot since New Orleans,” Bucky continues. “It could be fun, you know? Get dressed up. Listen to good music. Beautiful woman in my arms. Sounds nice.”

“You should… You should go,” you tell him and he barely recognizes your voice. He clenches his jaw until it aches, brushes at the tear in his eyes you’re too weak to lift your head to notice. 

“I’m not going with anyone but you, so no deal.”

“Bucky…”

“ _No deal_. You or nothing, doll.” Bucky finds himself smiling through the tears. “You’re my only dance partner, okay? Can’t be having just anyone step all over my toes.”

You hum and it’s so faint he can hardly hear it. 

Bucky clears his throat, swallowing back the lump that threatens to choke him. “We’ll have to go back to that bar, okay? The one off of Bourbon Street. Live music only. I can show you how we used to dance back in my day. I’m sure you’ll be wonderful at it.” 

A smile breaks through the tears as he imagines spinning you under the soften glow of amber lights and the reflection of the moonlight through the windows, the roar of trumpets settling in his chest and the echo of your laugh etched right into his soul. You’d smile at him and his whole world would stop spinning. 

“What do you say, doll?” Bucky sighs, leaning down to kiss the crown of your head. He brushes the hair away from your eyes, sticky and wet with sweat.

But you don’t say anything and suddenly, it’s impossibly silent. 

Bucky stops breathing because he can’t hear the crackle of the fire place or the wind barreling against the cabin walls. He can’t hear the heavy snow as it brushes against the windows. He can’t hear your breaths, can’t feel the pulse as he reaches up to your neck, and that silence begins to feel like a void, like he’s screaming, but it’s all inside his head. 

“Y/n?” he chokes out. There’s no reply, but still, as if to break his own heart a little more, he tries again. “Y/n? Please… don’t do this. Come on. Come back to me.”

Nothing.

“No… _no no no_ … don’t give up on me,” Bucky pleads, tears burning hot in his eyes. “Y/n…”

He barely notices as the cabin door is blown open, as the wind screams outside and snow barrels in through the frame. He can’t focus on much of anything else as he tries to move your lifeless body in his arms, trying to wake you from the edge of a paralyzing darkness. He doesn’t recognize the blur of red and yellow as it crashes into the room. 

“Banner! I need the antidote, now!”

You’re being pulled from his arms and all Bucky wants to do is hold on tighter. 

“Barnes, you need to let go of her.” 

The voice is calmer now, gentle, and Bucky allows himself to meet Tony’s eye. There’s a kindness there he doesn’t expect, an understanding. Tony’s helmet has been discarded and Bucky notices quickly he bares the same redness in the whites of his eyes, the same dark circles beneath. Tony’s hand lays upon your shoulder. 

“Let me save her, Barnes,” Tony tries again as Bruce barrels in through the door in a parka a few sizes too big for his frame. He’s clutching a syringe in his hand, desperately trying to hold up the hood around his head. 

Bucky nods numbly and releases you from his hold. Tony and Bruce lower you carefully down to the ground, laid upon the blankets he slept on less than an hour earlier. Tony presses his hand to your chest and an electrical spark jolts through your body. He tries again, and still, nothing. 

Bruce pulls off the cap of the syringe and without hesitation, plunges it directly into a vein and releases the serum inside. He sits back on his heels and waits. 

It’s agonizing. The seconds feel like hours and Bucky is certain he’ll never learn to smile again, until suddenly, the purple veins along the knife wound begin to retract. They crawl along your skin and shrink back to the wound until they’ve disappeared entirely. 

But then, the most beautiful sound. 

You gasp for air, chest rising high off the ground before you sink back against the blankets. FRIDAY reports your pulse, says you’re stable, and Bucky presses his hands over his face to stop the sob before it consumes him whole. It’s made of relief. 

“You did good, Barnes,” Tony says as Bucky lowers his hands. 

He’s suspicious of the praise, but as Tony runs a hand over your hair, soothes it away from your face, Bucky knows he meant what he said. 

“We should get her to the cradle,” Bruce says, shivering as he glances back to the door. “Helen will want to fix that wound up and run some tests to make sure the antidote worked.”

Tony covers you with the blankets as best as he can and gathers you into his arms. Bucky tries to ignore the lurch in his stomach as you press your nose to Tony’s neck, seeking out his warmth. He doesn’t say anything else before he flies out the front door, back to the quinjet.

Bruce starts to make his way to the door when he realizes Bucky isn’t following behind. He pauses and glances back at Bucky over his shoulder. 

“How did you know?” Bucky asks weakly, staring at the empty syringe. 

“A few of the Shield agents came back from the field with the same symptoms,” Bruce explains. He scratches the back of his neck. “We wanted to be prepared if either of you were infected by the poison.” 

Bucky nods. He feels empty. 

“She’s going to be alright, Barnes,” Bruce says and he places a comforting hand on Bucky’s shoulder. It surprises him but he can feel the tension slip away as Bruce squeezes the muscle tightly. He gestures to the door. “Come on. Let’s get you home.”

***

Bucky’s right hand is throbbing. Blood trickles down from the open scars on his knuckles and it smears into the punching bag. Beads of sand embed themselves into the wounds but he presses on because it’s better than the pit in his stomach, of seeing you laid up in the med wing with wires attached you and a monitor displaying the weak rhythm of your pulse. 

It’s been days since you’ve been home, since the antidote was administered and Helen properly stitched up the stab wound in your stomach, and yet you’re still unconscious, barely breathing on your own. Banner can’t make sense of it, but he suspects it’s because the poison was in your system longer than the others. 

Bucky can’t help but wonder that if he never left the field with you, if he had just stayed put and fought off whoever tried to come near, that maybe they could have saved you. Maybe _he’s_ the reason you’re still fighting for your life. Maybe if he wasn’t around at all you’d be safer, you’d be _alive._

The bag dislodges from the ceiling and slams into the wall in an echoing thud. 

Bucky sighs, slumping his shoulders down as he kicks at the sand streaming from the bag onto the gym floors. He turns to pick up the next bag in the long line leading from the storage closet when he stops dead in his tracks. 

You’re standing in the center of the gym, still dressed the pale blue scrubs from the med wing, holding onto the edge of a weight machine for support. There is a mark in your arm from where the IV line should be, tape residue around your mouth from the tubes. It’s a miracle you’re on your feet at all and all Bucky wants to do is run towards you, wrap you tight into his arms, just to convince himself that you’re real, that you’re standing _right there_ , but instead, he holds his ground. He’s turned to stone. 

“Thought I’d find you here,” you chuckle, your voice raspy and airy, but it has a strength to it again. It sounds like you. 

Bucky grips his hands at his side. “I didn’t… I didn’t know you were awake.”

You shrug. “Don’t think the nurses do either. Helen might be mad at me when she finds an empty bed in my room.”

“You shouldn’t be here, Y/n,” he says, his gaze focused on the floor. He pushes aside the heavy stone sitting in his chest as he starts to walk towards you to usher to towards the med wing. “I should get you back…”

“What else was I supposed to do when I woke up and you weren’t there?” 

You’re smiling, _teasing._ There’s a laugh in your voice, and still Bucky can’t help the pang in his stomach. It twists and turns and threatens to consume him whole. 

He rolls his eyes. “Maybe not wander around the tower after being in a coma for four days?”

The smile lingers upon your face despite his tone. It doesn’t seem to bother you at all, doesn’t throw you off your game, doesn’t puncture even a crack into the shield of your charm. No – you _smile_ at him. 

“You broke your promise, Barnes,” you say simply. “I’m here to scold you for it. Think you may owe me a few takeout nights before you’re out of the doghouse.” 

Bucky narrows his eyes, daring to challenge your gaze. “What promise?” 

“You left.”

Bucky feels the hitch in his lungs before the flash of guilt sweeps over his gut. You notice it just as quick because the teasing smile falls in an instant. He stumbles back away from you, slipping out from the extent of your outstretched hand. 

“It’s better that way, Y/n,” he mumbles. “I’m the reason you ended up there.”

“Don’t you dare do that,” you snap, enough so that it startles him. 

You struggle to walk the few steps closer to him, your legs wobbling underneath you and he wonders how you even made it across the tower and down five floors to the gym without anyone stopping you. You reach for his hand and because Bucky can’t bear to see you struggle, he offers his support. You balance yourself on the edge of the weight machine beside him, one hand anchored in his left forearm. 

“Y/n,” he starts, taking in a deep breath, but you cut him off quickly. 

“ _No._ There is no room for the Bucky Barnes guilt parade here, okay?” you argue. “ _You saved my life, Bucky._ You can’t possibly stand there and think for a second that you’re somehow to blame for anything less.”

He shakes his head. The guilt and shame that burns deep into his chest is one he knows well. It lives inside of him, festering, waiting for moments like these. 

“If I hadn’t taken you from the field, if I got that blade out sooner, Banner could have given you the antidote _hours earlier_ and you wouldn’t have—”

“I would have bled out before he had the chance,” you press, pulling yourself a little closer. “Those other agents? They had scrapes, Bucky. _Nicks._ The poison only started to affect me _after_ you removed the knife. Bruce thinks it reacted to the oxygen in the air. Waiting to remove the blade, closing the wound… Bucky, you prolonged it as long as you could have. You gave me more time, gave Bruce and Tony time to find us. You _saved_ me.” 

Your hand squeezes at the solid metal of his forearm and Bucky knows he can’t really feel it. He can only register the synapses faintly, as if they were distant, far away; it reads it like data and numbers, but there’s something in the way the pads of your fingertips press into the divots of vibranium that makes his breath hilt. His stare focuses on your thumb as it rubs soothing sweeps along the crevices and it takes him a moment before he dares to meet your eye.

When he does, all that is waiting for him is that same smile that lit up across a battlefield, that pushed through when you were on the brink of an endless darkness, that cast away the shadows and demons that swarmed in his chest just with the wrinkles up by your eyes. He felt lighter. Safer. 

“Now,” you start, sliding your palm down his forearm until you can intertwine your hand in his own. You curl your fingers around his and you don’t seem to be bothered in the slightest by the harsh chill of the metal. You smile at him and for the first time in a while, Bucky finds himself smiling back. “I believe you owe me a dance, Sergeant.”


End file.
